Delhi gang-rape victim to haunt attackers with 'dying declaration'

The 23-year-old student whose gang-rape and murder on a Delhi bus last month
provoked protests throughout India named her killers and revealed the
terrible details of their savage attack in a 'dying declaration' seen by the
Daily Telegraph.

An Indian activist prays as she takes part in a vigil for the Delhi rape victim.Photo: AFP/Getty

The physiotherapy student, now known as 'India's daughter', was attacked by six men on December 16 after she boarded a bus with a friend as they returned from a trip to a cinema in one of the city's smart shopping malls.

She was beaten so badly that 95 per cent of her intestines had to be removed in a series of operations and she died 13 days later in a Singapore hospital where doctors said she had suffered from severe internal and brain injuries, a heart attack, and abdominal infections.

Five men appeared in court earlier this week charged with her kidnap, gang-rape and murder, while a sixth defendant, who is believed to be 17, will be tried in a juvenile court. Lawyers for four of the men said they will plead not guilty and claim they were tortured by police into making false confessions.

But they will also be accused by the victim from beyond the grave in a "dying declaration" made to a magistrate as she fought to survive her injuries in Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital on December 21 – eight days before she died.

The declaration is part of the prosecution case against the men and a copy of it was shown to the Daily Telegraph.

In it, she said she and her friend Awninder Pandey boarded a white chartered bus after watching the film The Life of Pi at Delhi's Citywalk mall. They had struggled to make their way home and had jumped on the bus after hearing the conductor call out their destination, Dwarka, where she lived.

There were "six or seven" people on the bus and they assumed they were passengers. They had been apprehensive, but by the time they had paid their fare it was too late.

"The conductor closed the doors of the bus. He closed the lights of the bus and came towards my friend and started abusing and beating him. They held his hands and held me and took me to the back of the bus. They tore my clothes and raped me in turns. They hit me with an iron rod and bit me on my entire body with their teeth.

"They took all belongings, my mobile phone, purse, credit card, debit card, watches etc. Six people raped me in turns for nearly one hour in a moving bus. The driver of the bus kept changing so that he could also rape me," she said.

She and her friend had put up a fierce fight at the outset, she said, but their screams to passers-by outside went unheard and their attackers snatched their mobile phones. For half of her ordeal she was unconscious, she said, but each time she awoke in the darkness she was attacked again, she said.

"I heard these people saying 'catch them, tear their clothes, hit them, take her bag' and using abusive language. Ram Singh, Thakkur, Raju, Mukesh, Pawan, Vinay etc were their names. We were all the time in total darkness, they were all looking black. By their language they were illiterate, driver-cleaner type people," she said.

"Half of the time I was unconscious, but whenever I came to consciousness they beat me up. My friend tried to save me but these people beat him every time he came forward to save me. They also beat him with an iron rod and hit him in the head," she added.

When she and her friend showed no further signs of life, their attackers stripped off his clothes and throw them both out. "They removed all the clothes of my friend and they thought we had both died. They threw us out of the moving bus. We were both naked on the side of the road and many passers-by actually saw us and informed the police control room," she said.